Starcraft&Metroid Campaign Setting: Online

Fall 2005, Author: Kaz.
These rules modifications fall under “fair use” laws, and should not be sold. I give permission for any reader to redistribute these documents without restriction.

Other Rules: Setting Rules, Setting Flavor, Feats Revisions, Skills Revisions, Races Description, Footlocker, Star Garage, Classes, Professions, Advanced Classes.

Setting Flavor

Disclaimer: Canon errata. There is a lot of stuff out there about these fantasy universes from which I have borrowed. I am not using all of it, not even some of the parts that are labeled canonical by the creators. For the most part, it is good to read anything you can about these games stories, but only the stuff mentioned here will be certainly included as history the player should know. Of course I am myself always learning.
You can see more about this in the comic I have reworked: One Girl in All the World.

History in brief (can be found on http://www.blizzarduniverse.net/starcraft.php?pid=4)

Late twenty-first century Earth crafted a huge warp ship to house criminals and send them to explore the Koprulu sector of the galaxy due to overpopulation of Earth. Upon reaching habitable worlds in the Koprulu sector, factions formed and people built new lives. Eventually, an interplanetary government called the Confederation of Planets emerged and brought an uneasy peace to the war-torn Terran peoples. The Confederacy was known for shadowy operations, including the development of psionicly adept humans, who were placed in the Confederate Ghost program. Years passed, and freakish new xenomorphs began to arise. Before, the life on Koprulun worlds had been similar to dangerous animals on Earth, with climatic variations across the spectrum of biological and morphological imagination. These new xenomorphs attacked with a ferocity and rapacity unknown to Terran wranglers. The Confederacy lost border colonies on Cordonis to the xenomorphs. Some survivors under the watch of Jim Raynor escaped the infested planet, only to be placed under arrest for destroying a building that had previously been owned by the Confederacy, but was then infested as well by the xenomorphs. Raynor joined ranks with Arcturus Mengsk, who sought to wrest control of the border worlds from the Confederacy, and after a campaign of espionage and all out war, did so.

The Confederacy had been using psi emitters to lure the xenomorphs onto planets, thinking to use them as a weapon. The psi emitter became Mengsk’s weapon, however, shortly before the Confederacy fell. Mengsk lost his second in command (Sarah Kerrigan) to the xenomorphs, now identified as the Zerg.

Sarah Kerrigan met the Overmind, a titanic writing mass of mysterious synapses that regulated Zerg activity. The Overmind warped her physiology and dominated her mind, augmenting her existing psionic powers as a mere test of his own ability to craft biology in his image. Kerrigan became a mighty lieutenant of the Overmind, and led an attack on the Protoss homeworld of Aiur, so as to establish a new foundation for the Overmind there. The Overmind sought to bind the Zerg hive mind with Protoss physiology in the maniacal hope of perfecting Zerg form.

Admiral Tassidar had led a fleet of Protoss sweepers to remove Zerg presence from planets. Tassidar relented upon planets that showed signs of non-Zerg sentient life: thus sparing millions of Terran lives. For this mercy, the Adjudicators, under Aldaris, stripped Tassidar of his station and imprisoned him to await trial. A mysterious figure emerged to release Tassidar. His name was Zeratul, and he belonged to a long-banished sect of the Templar caste known as the Dark Templar.

Tassidar discovered that the Dark Templar’s warp energies could vanquish Zerg cerebrates. Other means of destroying cerebrates only served to make them reincarnate elsewhere.

Tassidar and Raynor joined forces to launch an assault on the Overmind on Aiur, where Tassidar finally charged the hull of his ship, the Gantrithor, with warp energies, and collided with the Overmind, destroying him and sending the Zerg warrior broods into disarray.

Once freed from the control of the Overmind, Kerrigan sought to bring the disparate broods under her control, and found an enemy in the United Earth Directorate.

The UED, under the command of admiral DuGalle came all the way from Earth to the Koprulu sector to establish authority over Terran factions and prevent the threat of the Zerg from spreading to Earth. In fact, the aim of the UED was to enslave the now reforming Overmind and use the Zerg as a powerful weapon against threats to humanity, much as the Confederacy had attempted before. Where the Confederacy failed, the UED succeeded: the Overmind developed with direction from UED medics into the slave of Admiral DuGalle, complete with control over three broods of Zerg warriors.

Before the enslaved Overmind could bend control of the remaining broods, Kerrigan formed an alliance with the shattered Protoss and Terran fleets, and declared war on the UED. Zeratul joined Artanis in rallying Protoss forces. Jim Raynor and Fenix, now in a dragoon shell stood at the front of a contingent of Terrans. Arcturus Mengsk was deposed and imprisoned by the UED.

Raszagal, the Matriarch of the Dark Templar on Shakuras agreed to house those Protoss who had fled Aiur when the Zerg struck. Zeratul followed Raszagal's direction to aid Kerrigan in destroying the new Overmind, as Dark Templar energies would be needed to accomplish the feat. Adjudicator Aldaris scoffed at the idea of helping Kerrigan at all, and dissected his ranks from the Prelate Zeratul's. After a reckoning, Zeratul fought and killed Aldaris, and reunited the Protoss forces, then used an ancient Xel'Naga temple and the Uraj and Khalis crystals to cleanse Shakuras of the Zerg threat. Then marching on the Overmind, Kerrigan, Raynor, Fenix, and Zeratul vanquished the Overmind cocoon. Kerrigan, no longer needing her allies, betrayed Raynor, Fenix, and Zeratul, stopped the Protoss on Shakuras from flight, witnessed Zeratul murder Raszagal rather than watch her remain under Kerrigan's control, and revealed Samir Duran as her spy in the UED ranks. The UED still possessed a powerful psi disruptor device, which prevented Zerg from landing on many UED planets without falling unconscious before crumpling and dying.

In a final decisive battle, Kerrigan met contingents of Arcturus Mengsk's fleets, the remnants of the UED, and a band under Artanis of Protoss warriors. Battle took place on an orbital platform above Char, and in the end, Kerrigan stood victorious.

Artanis fled with his warrior in search of Zeratul and the remaining Protoss, who have been missing since.

Jim Raynor turned his back on the sector, with the promise of one day killing Kerrigan.

Arcturus Mengsk re-established himself as emperor of Terran space in Koprulu.

Kerrigan licked her wounds, the majority of Zerg forces broken or scattered, Duran missing, and three of her cerebrates at large. She then sent a small cluster to attack the fleeing UED, ultimately destroying DuGalle's capital ship, and watching as the UED went back to Earth.

The Jroel Sector:

Thousands of years before the age of man in the Terran sector, a sentient race of avians known as the Chozo explored space, developed technologies, and studied the natural order. A group of prophets among the Chozo, long lauded for their history of social benefit and aid to explorers predicted the coming of a great darkness: The Great Poison will spread across Tallon, the Chozo will fall from Zebes before the army of Terror, and the spirit of the Chozo shall retreat into statuary and obscurity. Fearful of the meaning of this prophecy, Chozo scientists asked how they could prepare for the coming darkness, and were told to develop weapons of virtue using the natural order, and to watch for an adopted daughter who would come on a burning star.

Samus Aran was four years old when her father traveled across the galaxy with the UED to make war on the Koprulu sector. A flighty and loving child, she stowed away on one of the UED capital ships, and found her father, a dropship pilot, among the ranks of DuGalle's forces. Furious, her father pleaded with his commanding officers to be allowed on a private mission to get Samus back to Earth where she belonged. Dolf Aran's superiors refused, and threatened him with discharge if they found Samus in the way of operations at all. Samus then lived as sidekick for her father, watching marines and tanks dropped into the field with speed, or ported across the heavens by Dolf's steady hands. When the UED fled the sector, Dolf's ship was separated from the group and chased by Zerg flyers. Knowing that his ship was soon to be destroyed, Dolf loaded Samus into a drop-pod and desperately worked to re-configure the mechanism before sending his daughter into space. Dolf finished his modifications with a prayer that his memory of warp systems was good, and dropped Samus from the vessel, shunting her form across the sector.

Samus awoke, hurt, in a lush meadow. Mysterious looking insects flitted about playfully, and a bright sun shone overhead. The wreckage of her pod: a Terran infantry suit, was nearby in a heap. Samus had been warped across the sector and beyond, coming to the Jroel sector on a planet known as Zebes.

The Chozo who found Samus took her battered body to their doctors, who were unfamiliar with human anatomy, but wonderful students of morphological systems in general. The damage that warp travel had caused to the little girl was severe, and to treat Samus, the doctors replaced some of her genetic structure with Chozo DNA. A scientist named T’thoth adopted Samus and raised her in the ways of natural study that he Chozo so cherished. Samus asked often about the affairs of Earth, and while none knew a way to travel there, T’thoth suggested that she become a pilot, both to honor her father and to travel the stars. Indeed Samus did become a pilot, and traveled the cosmos free of worry for long, happy days.

Disaster found the peaceful and cavernous planet Zebes in the form of an unholy army. A massive contingent of Pathomorphs descended on the planet, calling themselves “Space Pirates,” and brought with them legions of monstrous life forms, including the monstrous intelligence known as “mother brain.”

Samus returned to an anchor point nearby Zebes, and found there a message from T’thoth. The Chozo had fallen, as had been prophesied, and Samus was the only living aspect of their race left in the universe, human though she be. Samus was panicked and crushed; she fled the sector using a semi-stable rift she had discovered and been warned about before.

No risk too small, now. The second set of parents she had lost. Samus found the Koprulu sector once more. Galactic civilization was still threatened, but alive, and Samus became a bounty hunter, using powerful tools unknown to Terrans.

A small group of research scientists on an orbital platform above Chau Sara hired Samus to patrol the area, thinking an official guard squadron would be too obvious. Indeed the researchers did grab the attention of mighty opponents to their progress. The Space Pirates had found their way to the Koprulu sector, at least in a small group, bent on stealing the scientist’s findings. The scientists, known as former Confederate lab Delta-Theta, would be the precursors of Biologic Space Ltd, an influential company in two sectors of space. The Pirates made off with much of the materials of the experiments, and murdered five of the scientists. Delta-Theta paid Samus to travel to Zebes and recapture the equipment if possible. Finding courage to face down the occupiers, Samus traveled to her second home. Samus’ arrival was unexpected, and the surprise profound: Mother Brain, and her guardians Kraid and Ridley fell before her increasing might, thanks in part to the gifts left behind by the Chozo on Zebes. As she left the planet, Samus was attacked in orbit-sequence by space pirate ships, and crash landed on the planet, her suit damaged beyond use. Samus snuck onto the pathomorph ship with only her jumpsuit and a stun pistol, and discovered that the space pirates were excavating yet more of the Chozo ruins, wherein lay a room-sized holoporter. Samus received an upgraded battle suit, vanquished the pirates, and left the planet.

Soon after, the Terran Federation commissioned Samus to destroy the threat of metroids found on SR-388, a remote planet in the Terran sector, near a far border of Koprulu space. After doing so, Samus discovered a newly hatched metroid that behaved differently than the others. She captured it, and took it to an orbital station in the Ceres system: the TFSci labs Ceres Station.

In three days, Samus followed a distress beacon activated at Ceres Station, and found the lab’s environment compromised, the scientists dead, and the experiments missing: including the unusual metroid. Samus followed a space pirate signature from the labs all the way back to Zebes, where once more the Mother Brain had established a base. This time, Phantoon and Draygon joined ranks with Mother Brain, and by deafeating all four guardians, Samus was able to free her way to the pits of Zebes in the country called Tourian, where the baby metroid rested. To her horror, Samus discovered that the unusual metroid had swelled to monstrous size while still in alpha form. It attacked her overwhelmingly, but relented before killing her. Samus recovered, and took the battle to Mother Brain.

Mother Brain showed a new form, this time a towering Cyclops of super-scientific might. Samus fought past various explosive and wave-emitted attacks, likely developed from copying similar Chozo technologies, when Mother Brain released her ace: a stunning and locked-on psionic blast abjured in a pulsing rainbow of flashing light. The hyper-beam, thought to be too dangerous for use, was now apparently the plaything of the monstrous Mother Brain. Before delivering the finishing blow, the baby metroid swooped upon its former master, shielding Samus from the blast, and absorbing the hyper-beam energy to boot. Then it covered Samus once more, and demonstrated that the life-draining process can be run in reverse, rejuvenating her suit and all. Mother Brain retaliated against and killed the baby metroid, allowing Samus time to regroup and launch a salvo of righteous fury against the Mother Brain in the form of her own hyper-beam.

With her dying breath, Mother Brain set the self-destruct mechanism spread all over Tourian. Samus escaped, sending also a group of Eticoons and Dhachoras off in an escape craft.

Recently, Samus has been commissioned by BSL to escort a supply ship through space near SR-388. Shortly after her arrival, status reports stopped coming from the BSL orbital station, and Biologic Space Ltd. suspects that their station has been destroyed.

Back to Games